Dear Editor:

This is an open letter to B.C. Premier Christy Clark and the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC).

Its early morning and as I awake I hear the sound of my electric furnace blowing warmth throughout my home.

I’ll lie here snuggled under the covers in my PJ’s, undershirt and socks until the temperature rises to its 67 (Fahrenheit) morning temperature.

Once the furnace stops I know its safe to make my way to the bathroom.

Safely there, I turn on the wall heater, which quickly reaches a toasty 70 as I go through my morning routine.

I get fully dressed in my flannel-lined blue jeans, shirts and a sweater before I turn the space heater off.

No I’m not going outside, it’s just that 67 feels cold to me.

I’m retired and my wife will be retiring soon, and like many retirees, money is tight.

Our electric bills have gone up substantially over the past several years in spite of the improvements we’ve made to our home to make it more energy efficient, including increasing our EnerGuide rating from 66 to 72 in 2006.

These days our thermostat is set to 67 during the day and 63 after 10 p.m.

Our home’s temperature settings weren’t always this low and we used to leave the daytime setting at 70 and night time at 68.

Those were the days, but now we’ve been put on a diet – an “energy diet”.

It seems that the British Columbia Utilities Commission, together with FortisBC, think we are careless with our electricity use.

Unfortunately, we run everything in our home with electricity and are being penalized for it.

When we purchased our home in 2002, electricity cost $0.05509 kWh and now it’s costing us $0.08803 kWh for the first 1600 kWh plus $0.12952 for the overage. Using our average yearly energy consumption of 24,000 Kwh per year our average all-in rate “post residential inclining block” would be $0.1129 kWh.

That’s more than double the 2002 rate.

Now Fortis had been pushing their “PowerSense”, ”ReduceYourUse”, “LiveSmart BC” and “Energy Diet” propaganda for awhile now so we decided to take them up on their subsidized “Energy Efficiency Evaluation.”

Thinking that maybe they’re right and we could possibly save some money here we decided to have the audit done.

Part of Fortis’s spiel was that the assessor would provide us with a energy kit that probably was worth more than what we would pay for the assessment.

That was our first disappointment. What we received were a paper fridge thermometer, four compact fluorescent bulbs, one aerator and one shower head.

Our second disappointment was with the actual “Energy Efficiency Evaluation” and its subsequent report.

Not at all like one would expect.

Its initial findings were “you could reduce your energy consumption by zero per cent and the EnerGuide rating came back at 72.

That was the same as our 2006 “post improvement” reading even though we had made several improvements since. The report made no mention of what kind of savings we could receive if we converted to gas or had a heat pump installed or anything else.

Frankly, I was disappointed with the report as it seemed very minimal and very standardized with generalized statements.

Basically it wasn’t much more than just a blower door test and the results that come with that.

When I complained to Fortis about the report and its lack of options they had the assessor do the report over again.

I was told that I should have told the assessor that converting to gas, replacing furnaces and installing heat pumps were options that I would consider.

The revised report estimated the savings that could be realized with a combination of a heat pump and an new air conditioner.

That combination in itself is questionable as it is my understanding that usually a heat pump would replace the air conditioner and run in conjunction with a furnace for the cooler temperatures.

Well we priced out several options and decided that it would take us too long to see any financial benefit if at all at the current rates.

If the cost of electricity keeps going up and natural gas comes down that may change but historically natural gas is at the bottom end of the scale.

I suspect the price of natural gas will start drifting back up and be twice as expensive in the coming years.

After all some one has to pay for all those new pipelines and associated infrastructure.

Our question is directed to Premier Christy Clark and the BCUC.

Why are we discriminated against and having to subsidize the “non-electric heat” Fortis customers with this ill conceived “residential inclining block” rate?

What more do you expect us to do?

R. Deis

Penticton, B.C.